The Baby Gift. Bethany Campbell
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She picked up the bulky package gingerly, as if it might have some magical power she didn’t want brushing off on her. Then she flashed Franklin a smile and set off, her gait sprightly.
A man less observant than Franklin might have been fooled by that sprightliness. She had a problem, and from the kind of mail she’d been getting—support groups, medical foundations—he thought he could guess what.
He prayed to heaven he was wrong.
JUST AS BRIANA was stowing Nealie’s package in her truck’s cab, a sleek Cadillac swept in and parked beside her.
Briana suppressed a groan and forced herself to smile, even though the cold hurt her face. The car’s driver, Wendell Semple, heaved himself out of the driver’s seat.
“Briana,” he said heartily. “Just the woman I want to see. Come over to the café. Have a cup of coffee with me. I need to talk to you.”
Briana’s smile felt as if it were freezing into place. “Sorry. My limit’s two cups a day, and I’ve already had it. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Wendell was vice president of the bank. He was heavy with what Briana thought of as a prosperous man’s solid weight. He had a prosperous man’s confidence, as well, the booming voice, the air that all his opinions were important and all his decisions were right.
“I said I need to talk to you, little lady.”
She didn’t like his tone and she feared what he wanted to talk about. “Sorry. I’m on a tight schedule.”
Wendell’s smile didn’t fade, but it hardened. “Briana, this is about money. Tell me. Aren’t you happy with the way I do business?”
Her heart plunged, and she felt caught out.
“I’d really like to know,” he said. “Why’d you take all your own money out of my bank? Weren’t you satisfied?”
Stay out of my affairs, she wanted to snap, but instead she made an airy gesture. “Nothing like that. It’s no big deal.”
He leaned closer. “It is to me. When I lose a customer, it’s always a big deal. Your family’s done business with my bank for what? Almost fifty years.”
She said nothing.
He went on. “We’ve not only done business together, we’ve been neighbors all this time. But now you’ve taken away your personal business. I’d like an explanation. I think I deserve one.”
“It’s simple,” she lied. “I wanted to try Internet banking—”
“But why?” he prodded. “Are you thinking of changing the farm account, too? That farm’s an important business in this county. I don’t want to lose it.”
She turned her collar up against the cold wind. “You won’t lose it. I did it as an experiment, that’s all. To streamline things. I thought I could give more time to the family business if my own’s handled automatically.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Now that sounds good. But is it the truth?”
“Of course, it is,” she said, lying with spirit. “I’ve got to run, Wendell. We’ll have coffee another time. Tell your wife hello. And that I’m starting her some begonia cuttings.”
She edged away from him, smiled again and got into her truck. Her heart banged in her chest.
Wendell stood in the snowy lot, looking like a man who didn’t intend to be thwarted. She gunned the motor and escaped.
He was prying into her money matters, but money was his business. She didn’t want him to know what she’d been doing. Not him or anyone else.
She’d changed her finances so all her bills were sent electronically to a St. Louis bank. No one in town saw them and no one in town knew what she was paying or to whom.
She had things to hide. She had fought hard to keep them hidden. But once again she had a frightening sense of urgency, that time was running out. Now, she thought. I’ve got to do something now.
HE HAD SPENT five weeks living in a flat, featureless wasteland of ice, taking pictures of nomads and reindeer and a way of life that was probably doomed.
He had slept in his clothes on pine boughs, bark and reindeer skins in a tent made of felt and hides. He’d kept from freezing at night with a portable stove that burned peat and pine branches. He stank of smoke and he hadn’t bathed or shaved for over a month.
Now he was in Moscow, with what felt like a permanent chill in his bones. He stood in the lobby of one of the city’s finest hotels, looking like a cross between the abominable snowman, an escaped prisoner and a bag of rags.
Other patrons looked at him as if he exquisitely pained their senses of sight and smell. From across the lobby, the pretty desk clerk shot him furtive glances of positive alarm. Josh Morris didn’t care.
He’d picked the Hotel Kampinski because after five weeks in Siberia, he wanted every luxury in the world, and the Kampinski had them all. It lavished its guests with saunas and masseuses, a gourmet restaurant and fine rooms. It had phones and computers, fax machines and color television.
He wanted to get in his room, unlock the private bar and open a bottle of real American whiskey. Then he’d climb into the marble bathtub and stay there all night, soaking and sipping and feeling his blood start to circulate.
Tomorrow he’d put on the Turkish robe the hotel provided, send his clothes out with orders to burn them and have new ones brought from the American store on Arbat Street.
And then, as the grand finale, he would call his delightful daughter and talk to her for an hour, maybe more. To hell with the long-distance rates.
Josh wanted to phone her tonight—he hadn’t even stopped over in the village of Kazym to clean up and rest. He’d promised Nealie he’d get through tonight if it was possible, but it was ten o’clock in Missouri now—past her bedtime.
After he talked to her tomorrow, he’d go shopping and stock up on Russian souvenirs for her. The nesting Matryoshka dolls, a set of Mishka bears, a small—but real— Fabergé pendant. Nothing but the best for his kid.
Briana wouldn’t let Nealie wear the pendant yet—she’d say the girl was too young and make her put it away. But Nealie would have it and plenty else, besides.
He thought of buying Briana something—Baltic amber or Siberian cashmere—but she didn’t like him to give her gifts. Still, she would look beautiful in white cashmere with her dark, dark hair and eyes….
A pang of bitter yearning struck him. He’d lost Briana. But he still had Nealie, and Nealie he would spoil to his heart’s content.
He reached the registration desk, set down his camera bags and gave the clerk his name and affiliation. “Josh I. Morris. Smithsonian magazine, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.”
“Ooh, Mr. Morris,” said the desk clerk in her lovely accent. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”
He probably wouldn’t recognize himself, he thought.
“I made reservations for two nights,” he said. He usually booked himself into the more downscale Mezhudunarodnaya, but he needed serious de-Siberiazation.
“Your magazine extend it to four nights,” she told him. “They send message that you are to stay and rest a few days.”
He shrugged. It was a bonus, like battle pay. Besides, they probably expected him to pick up some file shots of Moscow while he was here.
She frowned slightly. “You have many messages—many, many.”
He frowned. From the Smithsonian? Did they have another assignment for him already? Was that why he was getting the royal treatment? Good Lord, he thought, were they plotting to send him somewhere even worse? What was worse in winter?